Step 4: Juggling

Step 5: Have fun!

Now that you're a pro juggler (at least at the 3-ball cascade) you can start playing around. What happens if you throw that ball behind your back? Or...

Someone recently requested an Instructable on how to juggle, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to put up my first instructable.

This is a basic 3-ball cascade, the most basic 3-ball juggling pattern there is. If there is enough interest, I might post further patterns and tricks as people request them. You can also buy all kinds of juggling books which will guide you through these, but those cost money and most of us here are cheapskates. At least, I know I am.

I decided to use animated gifs on this to get the point across clearly and without distraction. All animations in this instructable were created using the Pivot stick-figure animator

Here's what you'll need:

1. 3 objects - preferably bean bags, but anything fairly spherical would work. I would recommend something with minimal bounce or roll, as you'll probably be doing a lot of chasing when you first start. For some good, sturdy, cheap bean bags, check out these.2. A little space - Don't try to learn this in a phone booth. Chances are that you'll have smallish spherical objects bouncing off of walls at some point in this process, so you should move away from your grandmother's knick-knack shelves before proceeding.3. Comfortable clothes - likewise, constrictive clothing will make your arm movements less fluid.4. Some time - I learned to juggle 4 balls between classes at community college. I would hurry to my next class then stand in the hall juggling for 7 minutes before taking my seat.

When learning, it can be useful to use silk scarves or tissues instead of balls - no chasing because they can't roll away, and they float, so you have more time to catch them, and focus on your technique.

You know, I have had many people recommend this, and I have never been able to do the scarf juggling thing. I find the technique and timing so very different from juggling anything with inertia. I always feel like I'm having to move my arms way to much to get the scarves to go anywhere, whereas with normal juggling you want to minimize the movement of your arms and put more of the motion in your wrists.

That being said, if using scarves helps you to get the pattern down, or in any other way helps you in your pursuit of juggling prowess, then by all means knock yourself out!

Also, it's entirely possible I never properly learned how to juggle scarves :)

Sweet! I remember taking severa days to learn to make that switch and back. I was running spotlight for a community college stage production at the time, so I had some good free time to practice. Even now I can only go counter-clockwise (heh, almost left the 'L' out of that word) with any proficiency.